"This is a great leap sideways"
-Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies
Chairman Mao would have been so proud.*
Via MSNBC:
Europe's high-profile agreement Friday to get tough on runaway government spending may help prevent euro zone countries from stacking up bigger piles of debt. It will do little to ease the mounting financial pressure on the European banking system from the borrowing binge that has pushed Greece, Italy and Spain to the brink of default.*From China Posters:
Europe's financial crisis has already sapped consumer and business confidence, tipping the euro zone into a mild recession. As the American economy has strengthened in the last few months, the threat has eased that Europe's recession could send the U.S. back into a "double dip" downturn. But a meltdown of one or more of Europe's big banks could pose a serious threat to the outlook for global growth.
Under the deal unveiled in Brussels, the 17 countries bound by a common currency agreed to introduce laws that would cap their national spending deficits. Countries that overshoot that limit would be hit with automatic penalties unless a majority of members overturned them. The inter-governmental pact, which doesn't require voter approval through national referendums, is supposed to be ratified by mid-March.
The deal may boost investors confidence that Europe's free-spending ways are over. It does little to head off the risk that one or more governments default on their debts.
"This is a great leap sideways," said Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies think tank in Brussels. "We now have a framework that in 10 years time could restore a degree of fiscal order to the euro zone. The German view is that this is all that is needed to convince markets to buy Spanish and Italian debt. I have my doubts that it will be enough. I think the tensions continue."...MORE
Put organizations on a military footing, put actions on a war footing, put life on a collective footing
Designer: Zhang Xin'guo (张辛国); Liu Duan (刘端)
1958, October
Put organizations on a military footing, put actions on a war footing, put life on a collective footing
The Great Leap Forward (1958-63) was the only period between 1953 and 1983 when the Chinese economy contracted.
